


Triage

by Trojie



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Concussions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha gets Clint to safety after the 'cognitive recalibration'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Triage

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my hurt/comfort bingo 2013 card, prompt 'brainwashing'. Big thanks to Yalu for brainstorming help!

It's like Clint doesn't even see her, until she slams his head into the railing, and then he blinks slowly and doesn't understand, and she can't stop seeing the empty blue stare of the man who was using moves she taught him to try and kill her, so she knocks him out. 

It takes her a moment to recalculate after that, to shake off the cold feeling of deja vu. It's not the first time she's fought someone whose moves were familiar. 

She waits a beat, two, three, until it becomes clear that Agent Barton is down for the count, and then she eases up. Around her, the noises of battle have receded. Either the fights have moved on or they're dying down - but either way, they can't stay here. This is a narrow space, enclosed enough to not give many options for escape if they're ambushed, and at the same time with wide-open enemy approach points at both ends. In short, it's the perfect trap. She led Clint in here - now she has to get him out and see to the injuries she inflicted. 

Well, the triage team, if there even is one any more, are going to have bigger problems than one comatose guy right now, let alone one who was spearheading the attack that nearly crashed the helicarrier, so Natasha grits her teeth and hoists him over her shoulder. Her weakened ankle buckles, but she's got plenty of handholds and she can go as slow as she needs, provided she just keeps going. 

The sickbay is full - full enough that as she gets near it Natasha realises that the people laid out groaning in the corridors are actually actively receiving treatment, which means that the sickbay itself must be maxed out. 

She changes direction towards the quote-unquote interview rooms. She can treat a concussion, in so much as she can keep an eye on Clint's vitals and keep him hydrated and awake, which is about all the sickbay staff would be able to do too, with this much chaos going on around them. And this way, if anything goes wrong, she can contain the situation. When she gets to an empty, undamaged room, and gratefully flops Clint down onto a cot, she doesn't even think at all about what she's doing, just straps him down on autopilot, like he's a perp. Then she radios Fury. 

He sounds distracted, but he acknowledges. 'Good job, Agent Romanov,' he says, and then cuts the channel and she's alone in the quiet with the distant sound of straining engines and Clint's slow breathing. 

So she waits. She's good at that. Famously good at it, she thinks bitterly, when she wore a different uniform. When Clint comes around, Natasha's braced for the blue-eyed killer, she has all her weapons in place and all her walls, and instead it's her partner, the normal human Clint Barton, who blinks and chokes and she has to hold a basin for him while he throws up. Concussion can take you like that. She strokes his hair back absently, thinking. He fights his restraints, but they're strong and he can't break them no matter how hard he pulls, can't slide his hands out of them either. She did her job properly. 

'Guess you're not gonna let me out, huh?' he rasps after he's finished losing the contents of his stomach. He keeps pulling at the wrist straps, almost as if he doesn't know he's doing it, just squirming against his bonds. 'Smart.'

'I don't know what he did to you,' Natasha points out. 'You weren't _you_ , Clint. And if you go to sleep again, who knows who you'll be when you wake up.' She shivers. It's a thought that strikes a little too close to home, what can she say?

'He made everything so simple,' Clint whispers. 'There was the goal, and there were my orders, and everything else was ...'

'Irrelevant,' Natasha finishes for him.

'And now ...' Clint jerks against his bonds, makes the cot shake. 'Tasha, what do I do now?'

'Clint, you're gonna be alright,' she tells him. It isn't a lie. 

'You know that?' he huffs, still fighting. 'Is that what you know? I got - I gotta go in. Flush him out.'

If only it was that simple. Even if Clint hasn't been conditioned, isn't harbouring nastier surprises for later, having someone mess around in your head isn't something you can just fix, and they have other worries right now. 'We don't have that long,' she tells him, trying to be reassuring without having to lie. 'It's gonna take time.'

'I don't understand,' he pants. 'Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and send something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade? he asks her, and it's just more proof that he's not himself right now because Clint, of all people, ought to know the answer to that question already.

But this isn't about Natasha. It's about getting Clint back on his feet for the fight that's coming, that Natasha's pretty sure is gonna outclass all the fights they've seen so far. So she tells him, 'You know that I do,' and waits for him to process that, get his head back in the game. What he's been through can't just be fixed, but the hurts can be patched up, for now at least. Natasha knows that for a fact. He can do this. He has to.

There's still a battle going on out there. The battles in their heads can wait.


End file.
